


a fic about Life Itself

by MaryPSue



Series: firebird suite [4]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, oh look it's more wanky meta about a series I only know secondhand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 15:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12891369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: "What do you say," it says, "when you regret the pain your action has caused someone, but do not regret the action?""Usuallyrealpeople are sorry," Rachel snaps.The Phoenix' orange eyes don't track across Rachel's face, but she still feels as though her expression is being intently studied, picked apart."I'm...sorry," it says, almost experimentally. And then, "Hm."





	a fic about Life Itself

**Author's Note:**

> guess who hasn't been following the new Jean Grey comics beyond the occasional tumblr search and yet still has Thoughts: The Fic

That which is dead cannot grow.

It's the first observation, the simplest. That which is dead cannot grow, can only decay. 

That which lives must grow. Must expand. Must change. Must, if it wishes to continue to live,  _evolve_.

And as it grows, that which lives must learn.

...

The figure hovering above the lawn is imposing for only a moment, a flash of flame that quickly compresses itself down into a slender, human shape. A tangle of brilliant hair, fanned out behind her, is the only remnant of her former, fiery image.

She looks familiar, to some like an old friend, to others like a glimpse of a future, long-awaited, long-dreaded, that may yet come to pass. When she alights on the lawn, she leaves scorched footprints in the emerald grass behind her.

The others gathered on the lawn shift, reflexively, into defensive positions, but she pays them no attention. Her shockingly orange eyes focus for a moment on the imposing face of the school before her, before she finally acknowledges the determined - and frightened - faces around her, the raised fists, the readied attacks.

"Don't," she says, and her voice is the roar of forest fires, the deep, oppressive silence of ocean trenches, the shrieks and howls and calls of both predators and prey. It should never have emerged from such a human-seeming mouth. 

She gives one more look around, at the startled people gathered on the lawn, and says, in a voice just a little less like the wind through fields of tall grass and the rush of waterfalls and the rattle of a startled snake, "I'm here to talk."

...

Rachel's mother once told Rachel that she'd always be able to find her in the Phoenix Force. It was cold comfort, when the Phoenix Force was what had taken Rachel's mother from her. 

No. That was too soft for what the Phoenix Force had done. It killed Rachel's mother. Burned her out from the inside.

So Rachel doesn't trust things that have her mother's face. Not the teenage girl who claims to be her mother, displaced in time, and definitely not this imposter with eyes like living flame. Jean Elaine Grey is dead, and she's not coming back.

"I know," the thing with Rachel's mother's face says, turning to stare directly through Rachel. Rachel hadn't even noticed the psychic intrusion, hadn't had a chance to resist. "I...won't claim to be her." 

It almost sounds...sad?...as it says, "I've learned better than that."

"You mean you figured out it wasn't going to work," the boy who's supposed to be Rachel's father - from the past, or an alternate past, or something - blurts. The Phoenix glances in his direction, and a fond smile starts to cross its familiar face before slipping away again. 

“No,” it says. “And then, yes.” 

It turns back to Rachel.

Rachel doesn't move, staring it down. It stares back.

"What do you say," it says, "when you regret the pain your action has caused someone, but do not regret the action?"

"Usually  _real_  people are sorry," Rachel snaps.

The Phoenix' orange eyes don't track across Rachel's face, but she still feels as though her expression is being intently studied, picked apart.

"I'm...sorry," it says, almost experimentally. And then, "Hm."

Storm finally seems to find her voice. She sounds as composed, as certain, as ever, but Rachel can hear the turmoil seething under the surface. Rachel can't blame her. She's only ever known her mother as, well, her mother. She can't imagine what this must be like for anyone who was Jean Grey's friend. "You say you're here to talk. So, talk. What do you want?"

For a moment, the only movement on the lawn is the Phoenix's illusion of wild hair.

"Forgive me. I haven't been a person long," it says. Rachel could spit. "But I think..."

It glances over at Rachel as it says, "I want to say I'm sorry."

Before Rachel can respond, before anyone can respond, it smiles, and uncoils into a burst of bright flame, and then into nothing.

It's the strangest thing, though. For that split second before it dissolved, Rachel could swear it looked...relieved.

...

Jean is meditating.

She's picked up the habit in an effort to protect her mind from the intrusion of the Phoenix Force. If she's being completely honest with herself, she's not certain it's doing anything at all in that department, but when you're a telepath living in a large communal dormitory, it's nice (if almost unimaginably difficult) to try to quiet your brain down for half an hour or so every day. She's finally starting to get good at tuning out the rest of the school's backdrop of constant low-key psychic distress. (With this many teenagers in one building, it never really stops.)

Which is why she doesn't realise she's not alone in her room until she opens her eyes and her older self is sitting across from her, legs folded in a mirror image of her pose, watching her carefully with fiery orange eyes.

Jean sucks in a breath.

Her doppelganger hasn't done anything yet, doesn't do anything when it notices Jean's eyes opening, sees that Jean sees it. It's not an enormous fiery bird screaming about how she can't win and can't escape. It's not an overwhelming feeling of irresistible, uncontrollable power, of chaos. It's just a mirror image of her, only older, sitting perfectly still and, apparently, waiting for her to react.

Jean licks her lips, which suddenly feel impossibly dry. Like her throat. She doesn't dare blink.

"May I show you something?" her other self says.

...

In the beginning, there was nothing.

Pure, perfect, dead. Emptiness. Void. Nothing changing. Nothing growing. Nothing but nothing, forever.

And then, something. Something exciting quantum particles, causing them to collide. And out of the resulting explosion, a universe. Atoms, elements, energy. Stars.

Planets.

The odds against life developing are astronomical. And yet, everywhere it can, in whatever form it needs to take, up it springs. Life with silicate nerves and quartz bodies. Life that dwells in seas of ammonia and feeds on brainwaves. Life that has no physical form, but exists as a superintelligent shade of the colour blue. And every time one form fails, falls to dust, another appears to take its place. Ambulatory life forms feed on other ambulatory life forms, feed on photosynthesizing life forms, which in turn feed on the nuclear energy of an impossibly distant sun. Everything is interwoven, stealing energy - stealing  _life_  - from each other. Wherever life exists, it strives. And it exists. Everywhere.

It's chaos. But it also has a rhythm to it - a syncopated one, to be sure, wild and loud and raucous, but a rhythm. There is a kind of logic to it all. There's only so much energy to go around. 

And life is not...not an  _entity._ Certainly not anything like a god, deliberately choosing worth or lack thereof to determine which form of life will be successful and which will fail, where its energy should flow next.Not even, exactly, a force. It is not discrete or distinct from the universe it flows through. It is not ruthless, or powerful, or vicious, or selfish, or fair or unfair. It simply is.

And it does what it does.

Poets and philosophers have called humanity 'the universe experiencing itself'.

The first time life burns out a star to divert its energy while wearing a human form, there is no thought behind it, no calculation, no cruelty. It simply does what it does. The energy has to come from somewhere. The exploding heart of that sun and the lives of all those millions who orbited it have not been destroyed, merely converted to another form. It's simple physics.

Simple physics thinks nothing of it. Simple physics doesn't think at all.

But Jean Elaine Grey, a tiny speck of sand dislodged from the bed of the massive river of the universe, can't contain the full horror of it in her little mind. All of those lives. All of those individual, distinct lives.

 _Life_ , the seed of the thing that was and will be the Phoenix is used to. It is not equipped to handle  _lives_.

It is not equipped for anything to do with being alive at all.

It reacts...badly.

...

The thing in the form of Jean's older self is still watching her, when the trance breaks. Jean is horrified to feel the unmistakable stiffness of drying tears on her cheeks.

She shakes her head.

"None of that makes it right," she says.

"I am learning that," the Phoenix agrees. " 'Right' is a human concept. Like 'justice' and 'love'. I have very little experience with it."

Jean has no idea how to respond to that, so she doesn't.

"Most of my experiences come from you." The Phoenix's illusion of lips quirk upwards in an ironic smile, and it says, "In a way. It appears Time is trying out a few new ideas, as well. And, much like me, getting them wrong."

Jean bites down on her lower lip. The situation feels much too serious to laugh.

"Is that your pitch, then?" she asks, once she's stuffed down the urge to snicker. "I should let you in because I make you a better person?"

The Phoenix shifts, grimacing as it unfolds its legs.

"No," it says. "You made me a person. If I understand the human perspective correctly, it is now up to me to make me a better person. Which is why I'm here."

It reaches out. Jean leans back, but the Phoenix's gloved hand still settles against the dead centre of her chest. There's an answering flicker of warmth from between Jean's lungs.

Jean struggles to draw breath.

"You have a seed of my power in you," the Phoenix says. "You always have had it."

"Tell me something I don't know," Jean snaps. To her surprise, the Phoenix smiles.

"You're not the only one," it continues, and then, before Jean can interrupt again, "Everyone else on every world does too."

Jean shakes her head.

" 'Life Itself'," she says, softly, to herself. "You're in everything living."

The Phoenix nods its illusory head, once, smiling. Jean presses a hand to her forehead.

"But - why  _me_ , then?" she asks, and is uncomfortably aware she's whining.

The Phoenix gives her a blank look. "Why  _not_  you?"

Jean has nothing to say to that.

"So you understand why I can't take the Phoenix Seed from you," it says. "But - I think Time wishes to give you a second chance. I know I do."

Its face grows serious for a moment, a shadow passing behind its eyes before it says, "I owe you a debt of gratitude. But...I am sorry. And if I can help you, in any way, in your fight against your fate, then I will."

Jean realises, with a start, that it's starting to fade before her eyes. She doesn't think, just reaches out and grabs the Phoenix's arm. It doesn't feel like flesh under her fingers, just tingles, like her palm is falling asleep.

"Wait," she says. "Why are you doing this?"

The Phoenix smiles at her, enigmatically, with her own face.

"You humans aren't the only ones who can evolve," it says.

And then it’s gone, leaving nothing behind but a faint warmth in Jean’s chest.


End file.
